


the usual shit

by youcouldmakealife



Series: always in tandem [46]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 04:31:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16926546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: “How’re things?” Dicky asks, and Georgie hates that that’s become the Dineen shorthand for ‘How’re things with Robbie?’, but there’s nothing much he can do about it, and the answer never changes.Well, it’s changed a bit.“Less shit than usual,” Georgie says. Progress.





	the usual shit

Sometimes Georgie lies awake trying to think of what room might be Robbie’s. It’s a single now that he’s out of his ELC, so Georgie wouldn’t have to worry, like he did last season, that Elliott would answer the door instead, take one look at Georgie, and know exactly why he was there, what he wanted. Who he wanted. 

It was a pretty good way to talk himself out of it, but he doesn’t have that now. Even if Georgie got the room wrong, knocked and got Quincy, or Kurmazov, he could simply mumble something about the wrong room. No one would be suspicious. No one would think twice.

Sometimes, Georgie lies awake thinking about what room might be Robbie’s, and then thinking about the greeting he’d get.

He never follows through with it. He doesn’t know if that’s self-discipline or, more likely, just knowing that Robbie would shut the door on his face. Or, worse, that he wouldn’t, that he’d let him come inside, and that they’d both regret it in the morning.

Sometimes isn’t really the right word. He thinks about it a lot.

*

It used to be hard in college, sharing the room with Robbie and not touching him, so he did, hair ruffles and choke holds and their elaborate pre-game handshake, clumsy at first, then well-oiled with practice, collisions on the ice, Robbie’s cage slamming into his chest, painful with velocity. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was close enough. And then he did have him, could touch him exactly how he wanted, but they kept it behind closed doors and Georgie still wanted to touch him all the time. So more hair ruffles and chokeholds and handshakes, and then he was in Cleveland and he had nothing.

Robbie sits beside him on the bench, plastered together shoulder to knee. They have a new handshake, explosion free. Georgie doesn’t know if Robbie meant that as a metaphor, but it’s worked out to be accurate enough. They’re over a month into the season, and the only time Robbie’s yelled at him was about a hockey play, which was something he’d always done. Did it when they were together, did it when they were best friends, did it from the start. That was normal, if nothing else is.

Most times they talk, Robbie sounds civil enough, if distant, unless they’re talking through plays, when it’s the same as it always been; always engaged, sometimes combative, but a team. They haven’t forgotten how to be that, on the ice at least. They still work together. Better than Georgie’s had with anyone else. It’s not even close.

Georgie doesn’t want to jeopardize it. Georgie’s terrified of jeopardizing it.

He wants to touch him all the fucking time.

*

Dicky calls him up, and that’s weird enough that Georgie wonders if mom put him up to it. They talk, hell, they talk almost every day — him and Dicky, him and Will, probably Will and Dicky — but that’s texts. It’s been like that since he was twenty-one and more alone than he’d ever been in his life, except for them. They’re his best friends, honestly. Georgie doesn’t know if that’s nice or pathetic. Both, probably. 

“How’re things?” Dicky asks, and Georgie hates that that’s become the Dineen shorthand for ‘How’re things with Robbie?’, but there’s nothing much he can do about it, and the answer never changes.

Well, it’s changed a bit.

“Less shit than usual,” Georgie says. Progress. 

“You dating yet?” Dicky asks.

“Nope,” Georgie says.

Dicky sighs. “You thinking of dating?” he asks.

“Nope,” Georgie says.

“You know, it’s way easier to get over someone if you actually try to, G,” Dicky says.

Georgie doesn’t want to. It’d be best for him, for both of them, honestly, but it’s — Georgie’s been holding onto Robbie with both hands since he was eighteen years old, before they were anything but — he’s been holding onto him since he was eighteen years old. He doesn’t know how to let go of him. He doesn’t think he would be able to even if he did knew how.

“Okay, enough of that sad sack shit,” Dicky says, when Georgie doesn’t say anything, like he wasn’t the one who brought it up. “What are we getting dad for his birthday?”

“Oh, it’s we now?” Georgie says. 

“You’re the one who made it we by always signing our names on the shit you get him,” Dicky says. “I just want to know what the hell I’m supposed to take credit for when he calls to thank me.”

“Mom says he wants a new lawn mower,” Georgie says.

“That’s boring,” Dicky says. “And it’s November, what grass is he going to be cutting?”

“It’s what he wants,” Georgie says. “And the thing about winter is that it ends eventually, and then grass comes back.”

“Georgie,” Dicky complains.

“You want to get dad something else too, no worries,” Georgie says. “Just let me know what it cost and I’ll get you back.”

“Kay,” Dicky says, then, “Less shit than usual?”

“Yeah,” Georgie says.

“That’s good,” Dicky says.

“Yeah,” Georgie says.

* 

Things continue to be less shit than usual, though Georgie wonders if he can say that. If it keeps tracking that way, doesn’t that become the usual? So, more accurately: the usual is less shitty. They play good hockey, the Caps in general and their pairing in particular. The guys have finally started to accept him now that Robbie doesn’t glare at everyone who talks to him. Washington starts to feel less prickly, less like somewhere he needs to get the hell out of.

One day, Georgie has an entire non-hockey related conversation with Robbie, and it doesn’t hurt once.

It’s funny how much more it hurts when he realizes that, like the pain’s only been delayed, magnified after the fact.

*

Robbie starts dating. Or, trying to. Bitching about how hard it is to find guys after a game in Brooklyn, loosely gesticulating while Georgie tries to drink slowly, despite the sudden urge to down his pint and go to the bar, leave the rest unheard. 

“Okay, but you’re kind of limiting yourself if you don’t do online dating and you know it, Bardi,” Dougie says. “This is a problem of your own making.”

“Nah, I tried, but my tinder game’s shit,” Robbie says. “I’m old fashioned, I guess.”

“What’s tinder?” David asks.

Robbie stares at him. “No, Chaps,” he says. “I refuse to believe you’re this sheltered.”

“I’m not sheltered,” David complains. 

“It’s like grindr, but they at least pretend to care about your personality,” is Raf’s unexpected contribution.

“Listen to the rookie!” Robbie crows. “The hell do you know about grindr, Sanchez? Shit you were getting up to small-town Alberta?”

Raf shrugs a little. “The internet exists in Alberta too.”

“Not buying it,” Robbie says. “Dougie, they got internet in your one-horse town?”

“We got nothing but sheep and oil drills, Bardi,” Dougie says. 

“Where’re you from again?” Raf asks.

“Like twenty minutes outside of Edmonton,” Dougie says, and Raf snorts.

David still looks confused.

Devon elbows Georgie in the side, and Georgie looks over. 

“You’re going to break that thing if you don’t quit it,” Devon says, bored sounding, and Georgie loosens his hold on his glass, takes a too long sip. So he’ll have one more than he’s supposed to. Fuck it.

*

Once Robbie starts bringing it up, he doesn’t really stop.

Georgie doesn’t think Robbie’s trying to throw it in his face, exactly, he’s just — he’s not sure Robbie’s _not_ trying to throw it in his face. And maybe he’s earned that. Maybe Robbie has the right.

“Anyone new in your life?” his mom asked, same as always, when he called her yesterday. She doesn’t even bother to sigh anymore when he says, as light as he can make it, oblivious as he can make it, “Just the same people,” hating that it’s true, hating that honestly, he should be using the singular.

Robbie starts seeing a friend of Dougie’s girlfriend. He doesn’t try to hide it, not from Georgie, not from any of the teammates he’s out to — not that he should, Georgie’s not saying he should — and the relationship lasts just under seven weeks. Georgie doesn’t mean to keep track, he just. Does.

He doesn’t know why they break up. Doesn’t ask, and Robbie doesn’t tell him.

He doesn’t know why he feels relieved, either. Or, he does, but. It doesn’t make sense to.

*

The first guy’s followed by another. Another after that. Georgie sometimes wonders if Robbie’s getting all his rebounds done now, years down the line. Robbie would tell him he was being ego-centric, making everything all about him, but none of them last, none of them meet the team. And Georgie doesn’t mean the whole roster: Elliott doesn’t seem to have met them, from the way he talks about them, and Georgie knows how tight they are. It’s like he’s not even trying. Or maybe he is. It’s not any of Georgie’s business, honestly.

Maybe he’d have a stone to throw if he’d had a single rebound himself. He doesn’t think you can call them that when they don’t last longer than a night, and even those are rare enough. The level of alcohol that it takes for that kind of social lubrication, lowered inhibitions, Georgie’s not drinking that when he’s out, and he’s not going to sleep with anyone who’s had more than him, so most of the time, nothing happens. He might flirt a little, be friendly, buy a girl a drink, but generally he’s heading home alone, sober enough that he could drive, if he wanted, though he doesn’t.

Georgie gets tinder, and feels stupid about it, doesn’t end up doing anything with it. Gets grindr, and does, one night in that ugly lull between his birthday and Valentine’s, finds himself taking an Uber across town to get laid. 

There’s no meeting for drinks first, pretending they both don’t know what’s going to happen, what the drinks are for. There’s no pretending this is something other than what it is, and Georgie appreciates that, though it’s — he’s never done this sober. Sex, sure, but not like this, not with someone he didn’t already know. It makes him feel exposed, and he doesn’t know why, exactly. 

He’s not doing anything wrong, but punching in the door code and waiting for the guy — Quinn — to buzz him up, he thinks this might be the way someone feels going to see their dealer or something. He wouldn’t know, but the itchy, trying be casual, not to look over your shoulder, people probably feel that way during illegal shit. Georgie’s smoked some pot, jaywalked, had a fake ID by the time he was seventeen and used it, but honestly, that’s about the extent of his lawbreaking experience. And this isn’t even — Quinn’s in his twenties too, no one’s getting paid here. It’s a fucking hookup. You’d think he’d be used to it by now, but tonight it feels all wrong.

The elevator up takes forever, and the walk down the seventh floor hallway — and of course he’s at the end of it — even longer. Quinn answers the door almost immediately, and something in Georgie loosens a little. 

He looks like his pictures, which is never guaranteed. He’s shorter than Georgie, but then, most people are. Shorter than Georgie thought he might be, not just hockey player short, but short-short. Slight, you might say. He has a nice face. Cute, Georgie sort of means, but also like he’s a nice guy.

He reminds Georgie a little of Robbie’s college boyfriend, which is a weird thought to have. Partly because he hasn’t thought of Francis in years. Partly because those are words that could describe Georgie, in the end, though they wouldn’t do a very good job of it.

Quinn offers him a drink — “Like water or orange juice,” he clarifies, then, “I don’t drink,” with an expression that tells Georgie not to follow up on it. Georgie takes it, has maybe a few sips of tap water while they awkwardly talk around the substance of their meeting. Georgie hasn’t felt this out of his depth in awhile. Hell, he’s pretty sure he was smoother than this the first time he stuck a hand down a guy’s pants, and he was fifteen at the time. 

“I kind of thought you’d be hideous,” Quinn says.

“Hey,” Georgie says.

“I mean, none of the pictures had your face,” Quinn says. “So I thought it was your body making up for it. But you’re — you’ve got a good face.”

“Thanks,” Georgie says.

“God, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I say words,” Quinn says, covering his face, laughing at himself a little, and it’s easy, then, to lean down and kiss him.

“Jesus, do you work out for a _living_ , what are these things,” Quinn says when Georgie’s shirt comes off, then, “You know what, please kiss me again before I blurt out an ode to your abs.”

Georgie’s mostly undressed and almost all in before Quinn drags his hand to where he’s hard and hot in his jeans, and he has this thought, sudden and unwanted, that this is the first guy he’s touched like this since Robbie, and not since last year, but since — since Robbie — and he just — he can’t. He fucking can’t. 

He jerks away, sits up, putting both feet on the floor, and trying to breathe.

“You okay?” Quinn asks.

“Fine,” Georgie says, but it comes out all wrong.

“This your first time with a guy or something?” Quinn asks, and he sounds kind of annoyed — Georgie honestly can’t blame him — but sympathetic too.

“No,” Georgie says. “It’s just been awhile.”

“You want to slow down, that’s cool,” Quinn says.

“No, I—” Georgie says. “I think I need to go. I’m really sorry.”

“Goodbye abs,” Quinn says sadly as Georgie pulls his shirt back on, and it lightens the mood just enough that Georgie makes it outside without panicking, doesn’t really get there until he’s in an Uber, carefully holding himself together until he gets to his apartment.

There’s no one he can tell about this. His family’s out — that’s more than too much information — and he can’t call Daniel for an emergency session for and say what, ‘I almost had a fucking panic attack touching a guy?’. Daniel knows about the shit between him and Robbie, but he’s a fucking sports psychologist. Georgie’s playing fine. Georgie’s playing great, honestly. 

He’s worked too hard on civil — they’ve worked too hard on civil — for Georgie to send Robbie a text, saying what, _I’m apparently so fucked up over you I just sabotaged getting laid_. That’s not just crossing a boundary that’s been set, it’s blowing right through it. Besides, the feeling’s clearly not mutual.

Georgie wants to go home, but it’s not — he doesn’t want to go to his stupid apartment, or his parents’ place, or Cleveland, or BU, or even last year, that sick with love punched out feeling when Robbie was still letting him touch him, when Georgie was still letting himself touch him.

Georgie wants to go home, but what he wants doesn’t exist anymore, and he knows that, because he’s the one who burned it to the ground. 

“Hey,” Georgie says. “Can I go somewhere else?”

“Where are you thinking?” the Uber driver — Will, Georgie remembers, because, well. Will. — asks.

Georgie has no fucking clue.


End file.
